For decades, he’s been our Juan Cabrillo, exploring every nook and canyon, tramping coast and countryside. He is the man behind what is widely considered the local bible of hiking, “Afoot & Afield San Diego County.”

Now his world is no bigger than his bedroom.

He’s been bedridden since June. He’s weak and is getting hospice care. He takes morphine at night for the pain.

The veteran outdoorsman and writer learned in March that he has final-stage kidney cancer. He figures he may only have a few months left, if that, and has already penned his own obituary.

In the mornings, his wife, Peg Reiter, opens the blinds of their downtown San Diego condo and they cuddle and talk.

Getting terminal cancer was tragedy enough. But both say the deepest pain comes with the calendar.

They only met last year. They married five months ago. He was 61. She was 54. On their first date, they hiked Balboa Park and Peg managed to match his then-blazing pace.

They were in step from the start.

“Here I meet this woman and it’s perfect and I just wanted to share all these experiences,” says Jerry, resting on his bed. “And all of the sudden, boom, it looks like it’s not going to be possible.”

Peg curls up to him and strokes his hand.

“This man, this beautiful man, who was just the love of my life, I have waited 54 years to meet,” she says. “And I get him such a short amount of time.”

So they find themselves on a journey they didn’t expect, knowing the trail splits up ahead.

Instant chemistry

It was thoroughly modern romance from the start: They found each other online, on match.com.

They agreed to meet in Balboa Park. It was March 12, 2010.

When Jerry saw Peg that first time, it was like one of those movie moments, when the chemistry is instant and the attraction whole.

When Peg saw Jerry, she was just as hooked. At the time, he looked much younger than his age. Plus, the man was a machine. He blazed 30 miles or more each week, part of it in the backcountry, where he seemed to know each trail down to the boulder and gopher hole.

Twenty-five years after its first publication, “Afoot & Afield” remains a dog-eared favorite among outdoors types and has sold 160,000 copies. The latest edition includes walk-throughs of 250 coastal and inland paths.